Channing Tatum set to star in Catherine the Great

Step Up and GI:JOE hunk Channing Tatum has snagged a lead role in Randall Wallace's Love and Honour .

The film is adapted from Wallace's own novel, which is based around the life of Russian Empress Catherine the Great. Tatum will play an American soldier who is sent by Benjamin Franklin to persuade the legendary ruler not to take sides with the British.

Anne Hathaway has been offered the role of Beatrice, who is apparently one of Catherine's servants and a potential love interest for Tatum's character.

Randall Wallace should feel right at home on this historical-fiction project. Not only did he pen the novel on which it is based, but he also wrote Braveheart and Pearl Harbour , and has directed The Man in the Iron Mask , We Were Soldiers , and the buzz-gathering Secretariat .

It remains to be seen whether or not Love and Honour will give Tatum the chance to prove himself as a serious actor (see his teensy role in Public Enemies ), or if it'll just be another opportunity to have his army of lady fans swooning (see Dear John ).

Source: Collider

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Matt Maytum
Editor, Total Film

I'm the Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the running of the mag, and generally obsessing over all things Nolan, Kubrick and Pixar. Over the past decade I've worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+, and you can often hear me nattering on the Inside Total Film podcast. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.